Terekke - Damn / Pf Pf Pass

Terekke - Damn / Pf Pf Pass
Dance music is inherently social; that much goes without saying. But it can also be private, whether it's the feeling of being lost on the dance floor—an emotion Steffi, for instance, channels wonderfully—or dreaming of a dance floor that doesn't exist.

That latter urge is what I hear in these two tracks by Terekke (Matt Gardner), a Brooklyn musician who jams econo on synths and drum machines run straight to tape. Admittedly, it's not that hard to imagine these tracks "working" on the dance floor: both around 116 BPM, they're no slower than plenty of contemporary deep house, and they tread spongy turf similar to that mapped by Move D, STL and Juju & Jordash. But "working" clearly isn't the point. These tracks aren't slackers, but they make no concessions to the usual arbiters. The tracks haven't been compressed for today's chest-thumping club systems. They don't shout at you; they whisper. They require you to meet them half way.

Not that there's not funk here, especially in "Damn," with its sprightly bassline and eager handclaps. "Pf Pf Pass" is more sedate, although the drum programming and the flickering counterpoints put plenty of shuffle in its sleepwalk. But it's a private funk, one geared to the after-hours of the mind. If that happens to coincide with an actual space filled with other people, consider yourself lucky. Until then, you can imagine these songs just running along, doing their thing, glowing like vacuum tubes in a dark room.